Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 9): Frayed

by Chesser, Shawn

It’s your butt, babysitter, thought Raven as her namesake started to caw somewhere nearby. Instinctively her hand went to the knife on her hip. She rested her palm on its antler pommel. “What about the rotters?” she asked, shifting her sixty-five-pound frame nervously side-to-side.

  “We don’t have anything to worry about. Besides, it’s still not warm enough for them to move with any kind of speed.”

  There was a brief silence as Raven shot her a look that seemed to say are you sure?

  “Trust me,” said Sasha. “C’mon. What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

  Raven said nothing. Her mind was going a mile a minute and in her head was a little voice trying to talk her into climbing back through the fence and letting Sasha go ahead by herself. But just as her muscles started to act on the impulse, a pair of east-facing firs, having grown up so closely together that a good deal of their branches had become interwoven, shed several huge chunks of wet snow in one fell swoop.

  The roar was tremendous, shattering the silence, and the sight of the snow hammering the ground with immense force made any kind of walk, whether towards the State Route or back to the compound, seem to Raven too dangerous a thing to attempt alone. Again, as if something outside of herself was in control, first her left foot moved forward and planted on the narrow path, then the right grudgingly followed suit. Soon she was walking in Sasha’s footsteps, all thought of consequence trumped by a heaping pile of age-old peer pressure. A hundred paces from the inner fence, as the forest went from mainly firs and opened up into a grove of birch and oaks, the latter whose orange and red leaves were not completely shed, the two girls cut a ninety-degree turn to their right. A minute later they were standing by the side of the feeder road, out of sight of the middle gate camera, and, to pass the time—while also keeping Raven’s mind off of the fact that they were both playing with fire—Sasha proposed they play a game she called Island Hoppers.

  “The snow is the water and the spots of gravel where it has melted are the islands,” she explained. “The navigator goes island hopping until she gets stuck and cannot reach another island.”

  “What happens then?” asked Raven, no longer giving much thought to her mom or whether they were out of range of the camera or not.

  “Easy,” said Sasha. “Then the next person is the navigator until they get stuck.”

  “How does someone win?”

  “Whoever is navigating when we get to the graves is the winner.”

  “Graves?” said Raven. She stopped abruptly, swung her gaze to Sasha and thrust her hands into her pockets.

  Bear River North Gate

  Dregan was in the lead driving the Tahoe. Lined up behind him was the surplus Blazer once belonging to Mikhail and three Humvees, the first two driven by men who were acquaintances and only along due to one negotiated transaction or another. The Humvee bringing up the rear sprouted the turret-mounted MK-19 grenade launcher and was driven by Dregan’s brother, Henry.

  At exactly eleven-thirty the black and white former Jackson Hole Police cruiser rolled to a stop near the rear gate, a twelve-foot-tall monstrosity clad with rust-streaked corrugated metal and strung through every which way with what had to be a mile-long strand of equally rusted barbed wire.

  As heads panned up from what they were doing, the rain resumed, pelting the windshield and putting new pockmarks in the diminishing blanket of snow.

  The pair of armed men guarding the gate—both having already been promised certain things by Dregan to look the other way—nodded at him conspiratorially then rolled the wheeled gate open and stepped aside.

  After making eye contact with both men—one of whom was Eddie Swain—and nodding subtly their way, Dregan started the Tahoe rolling slowly over the threshold. A few dozen feet on the other side of the gate, just as the single-lane road entered an orchard, he stopped and waited while the other vehicles passed on through.

  With the gnarled branches of the skeletal trees reaching for the jouncing trucks from both sides, and clumps of snow heavy with rain pelting the Tahoe’s roof, Dregan led the convoy north. They drove through the orchard for half a mile until the road cut a sharp ninety-degree left, where it followed the contour of the land on a gentle downslope west to an eventual merger with the laser-straight stretch of State Route 16 off in the distance.

  With the four-wheel-drive still engaged, Dregan drove one-handed through the muddy snow for a spell while he fished Lena’s iPhone from his jacket’s inner pocket. He reached to the dash and worked the phone lengthwise into a device that looked to either have at one time held a book of tickets or a wide pad of paper positioned nearby for taking notes on the fly. Secured left-of-center on the dash, the apparatus’s rubberized arms held the phone firmly in place, almost like it had been designed by Steve Jobs himself. Nearing the bottom of the dip, where the road flattened out prior to the T-junction, Dregan again took his eyes off the road to thumb the device on.

  While he waited at the “T” for the four military vehicles to close ranks, he tapped the Video icon and started Lena’s wedding montage playing.

  The tuned suspension complained as the slightly lowered SUV turned onto the snow-covered two-lane heading northbound. Once forward momentum was established, Dregan looked at the clock on the dash and learned it was a quarter to noon. In his mind’s eye he saw Newman being escorted across the rutted street from the makeshift jail to the bookstore-turned-courthouse. In a way he envied the man. Whoever said revenge was a dish best served cold was either fucked in the head or had never been in either of their shoes. Norman got drunk and acted, and from that there was no escaping. There were far too many witnesses. And Ford’s warm body to boot. The trial would be quick and the vigilante would be swinging from the hanging tree by one o’clock.

  Dregan thought about how it must have felt to gun Ford down with the AK-47. After a second he decided, though very effective, it just wasn’t quite as up close and personal as cleaving a sharpened length of steel into the deserving dirtbag’s cranium and watching the light ebb from his eyes.

  There was no doubt in Dregan’s mind. He had been there and done that with his sword. It was satisfying, and that was how Lena’s murderer needed to go out. Death by ancestral sword. Fitting and final. Peaceful and accepting or kicking and screaming. Either way, he would have closure and life could go on.

  He pictured the bailiffs helping Newman through the double doors. He saw the judge in his chambers, just a glorified storeroom filled with dusty paperbacks. Right about now, he figured, Pomeroy would be draining the liquid courage from his flask, stuffing random papers under his arm, and standing in the gloom—all anticipatory moves preceding his title and name being barked from beyond the door.

  Realizing he had been daydreaming, Dregan cast a glance at the drama playing out on the glossy screen. Pissed that he had missed out seeing Lena on the proposal portion of the strung-together footage, he kept one eye on the road and one on the screen as the bachelor party scene unfolded. Mikhail was pacing back and forth in front of the groomsmen-to-be, his mouth moving and gesticulating with his arms. He was drunk and his slurred words barely rose above the hot air blasting from the Tahoe’s vents. Dregan did nothing to remedy this. He knew what was being said. He had been there that night and had bristled as the insecure young man pointed out everything that was wrong with the men—his supposed friends—sitting in a line on the barstools. A portent of what was to come; the bartender was in the background drying and stacking glassware and watching the drunk groom surreptitiously via the mirrored backbar.

  There was a sharp jolt as the Tahoe ran over a prone form on the road. He took his eyes from the phone and fixed them dead ahead where the road would soon begin a long uphill climb.

  At the top of the rise, the entire white landscape spread out before him. To the left were low foothills, the spiny ridges reaching down towards the road looking like bony fingers filling out a white glove. Straight ahead, miles in the distance was Woodruff looking every bit as dead as it was. To the ri
ght of Woodruff, foothills rose up, quickly culminating in the nine-thousand-foot-tall snow-covered peaks of the Bear River Mountain Range. And closer in, on that side, was the big red barn and two-story house with Helen and Ray snugged warmly inside. He flicked his eyes right a few more degrees and walked his gaze over the snowy field all the way to the snaking Bear River’s slow-moving waters. There, somewhere between the house and river, was Cleo, the battery in his two-way radio no doubt sapped dead by the cold, freezing his ass off and earning every single thing Dregan had promised.

  The radio in the console crackled to life. The voice that came through the speaker was a smoker’s, gravelly and booming. “We were talking back here and Peter wants to know if we’re picking up Cleo.”

  Dregan’s knuckles suddenly went white as his grip on the steering wheel tightened. A steady throb started at both temples as he pulled to the shoulder and set the brake. On the iPhone’s screen, the action was just getting to the part where the bartender shut the party down and singled Mikhail out by calling him ‘Mister Rashovic.’ Feeling a flush of heat spread to his cheeks, Dregan shut off the heater blower and let the embarrassing moment play through, every word coming out of the tiny speaker suddenly loud and clear. He put his thumb in front of Mikhail’s moving image so he didn’t have to see his face again. With the other hand, he picked up the two-way, and just when Mikhail was meeting the bartender toe-to-toe on the customer side of the bar and seconds from delivering his trademark line, Dregan spared himself from hearing it again by stabbing his thumb down on the iPhone’s power button.

  He sat in silence for a few seconds while the Blazer and three Humvees labored up the hill. As they pulled off the road behind the Tahoe, he saw in the rearview another half-dozen trucks and SUVs materialize over a distant rise. Mostly held together with rust and painted the same woodland camouflage pattern as the Blazer, Dregan had gifted them to a Bear River resident named Larry in exchange for a day’s worth of armed backup. He watched them for a short while as they slowly closed the distance with the Humvees.

  The sun high in the sky glinted off the passenger side windows as the vehicles hit the straight. A tick later as they picked up speed, Dregan saw the prearranged signal delivered when the lead vehicle flashed its high beams three times.

  “Peter wants to know ... ” Dregan said to himself, the sight of the older military surplus vehicles suddenly making him wish he had eschewed the Tahoe for the Blazer just so he could flick on the stereo and let the flowing notes of Bach or Beethoven bring his stress level down. But he hadn’t and, seeing as how there was no way to send Peter back through the gate without racking up more favors than he wished to fulfill, Dregan had no choice but to bring him along.

  Clenching his teeth and in as calm a voice as he could summon, he said, “I’ve got a call to place, Hank. Please send my blonde-haired blue-eyed devil up front. Our plans have just changed.”

  Chapter 62

  Cleo was in the throes of ecstasy … in his dream. If he had been a bystander looking down on his own body stretched out on the old davenport, he would have laughed out loud. Deep in an REM sleep cycle, his eyes were moving rapidly under the lids. Judging by the disconcerting ripple his corneas made as they swept back and forth, pushing against the thin skin there, one would think that in his dream he was on the sidelines and watching an Olympic-caliber game of Ping-Pong.

  A thin strand of drool broke free from the corner of his mouth and fell to the small puddle forming next to his head. His long johns were tented in front and he was in the process of giving himself a thorough, albeit, unconscious scratching down there.

  Just when the thirty-something woman was about to apply leather to his backside, Cleo felt something altogether different. Had she gone rogue on him? Was that a stun gun crackling back there and about to deliver him into oblivion? His mind reeled. A tick after the initial sensation hit him, his eyes snapped open and he was wondering where in the hell he was.

  He remembered a snifter being filled repeatedly. He’d lost count after five, but was pretty sure he hadn’t been drugged. Two reasons: One, his own personal rule: he didn’t drink with people he didn’t know and, more importantly, trust. And two, that he was still alive meant he hadn’t been traded away to someone intent on putting him into their stew. He knew enough to stay away from Bear River’s seedy underbelly, where things of that nature, though not common, had been known to happen.

  The sensation was back. Something vibrating against his backside. He was up in a flash as where he was and why he was here came rushing back to him. Wearing only a dirty wife beater riding high over the red long johns, he was up and stepping into his boots, the radio vibrating madly in his hand.

  “Lunch is served,” called Helen from the kitchen.

  Cleo said nothing. If he didn’t answer this he was going to end up as somebody’s lunch—living or possibly undead. He rushed out the front door and was hit instantly by a sideways-driving drizzle. It was coming in from the northeast and dripping off the porch overhang. And it was still cold, even though the mercury in the old enamel thermometer tacked next to the front door showed the temperature had inexplicably climbed into the low fifties in less than twelve hours.

  He thumbed the Talk key. “Cleo here,” he said, wheezing a little.

  “For Christ’s sake,” barked Dregan. “What took you so long to answer? And why are you breathing like you just left the whorehouse?”

  “Feet got tangled in my sleeping bag when I stood up, that’s all,” he lied.

  “You were sleeping on the job?”

  The lies piled on. “No, Dregan,” he said. “I was staying warm and couldn’t find the radio.”

  “What did Ray and Helen do? Did they leave the house?”

  Cleo paused for a second, radio clutched in his hand, mind reeling. The further invested in the lies he became, the higher his anxiety level climbed. At the moment he was embroiled in a massive Catch 22. On one hand he wanted to fire up a cigarette. He wanted one so badly he could actually taste the stale, month-old tobacco. However, at the moment, it seemed as if an elephant had parked its substantial backside on his sternum. Breathing was a chore. And the more he lied, the bigger the elephant got.

  “Change your batteries,” Dregan bawled.

  “I’m here,” stammered Cleo. “Ray and Helen were inside all night.” A half-truth.

  “And nobody came by?”

  “Nope,” Cleo said, casting a nervous glance at the door behind him. He released the Talk key. A few seconds of dead air. Now Dregan was leaving him hanging. He opened his mouth to ask whether he should get his vehicle and drive to the 39 junction or if he should just walk down and wait by the end of the Thagons’ drive. But he didn’t get the chance to. Instead, wholly unexpectedly, Dregan let him off the hook. The big man said, “I have enough men. You did a good job. Go on back and warm your old bones by a fire.”

  “But if I don’t go … I don’t fulfill my part of the deal,” Cleo protested.

  “Don’t worry, old friend. I won’t dock you, I’ll add an extra couple of tins of snuff. Consider it a tip.” There was a pause. Just a handful of seconds. Dregan went on, “Go. I insist.”

  The last transmission sent the elephant scurrying from Cleo’s chest. In his mind, the hangover was gone and he was already at Smead’s Tavern, hoisting one, and about to try and lure his favorite brunette back to his place with a fifth of the vodka he had been promised. But he played it cool. He said, “Are you sure you don’t need an extra gun? I’m a little stiff and numb from a night out in the elements … I could still—”

  Dregan cut him off. “I don’t have room for you anyway. I just picked up another passenger.” His thumb was still depressing the Talk key. Cleo heard a rattle and then a kid’s voice followed at once by the solid thunk of a door closing. He took a deep breath. Fumbled in a nonexistent pocket for a smoke. Realized he was outside, damp and cold, and in his underwear.

  “If you insist,” Cleo replied. There was another rattle and
then the creak of a screen door opening behind him. He craned over his shoulder and quickly powered down the radio.

  “What’s the word?” Ray asked. He was holding a red felt hat two-fisted and wringing it like a hunk of saltwater taffy.

  “I’ve been relieved.”

  “Well then I’m relieved. Means neither one of us gets to face Dregan. I was going to give him a piece of my mind for sending you to spy on me.” He thought: Shut up Ray. Switzerland.

  Like an Etch A Sketch given a good hard shake, the look of elation instantly drained from Cleo’s face. “You’re not going to—”

  “Tell Dregan you spent the night under the enemy’s roof?” Ray put the hat on his head and cracked a mirthless smile. “I won’t spill if you don’t. Deal?”

  Cleo’s face lit back up. He was flashing the rotting picket of teeth again. “Deal,” he said. “Now I need a smoke.”

  ***

  Dregan had just set the radio aside and the tail end of one of his famous one-minute staring sessions was drawing near. Counting down from sixty in his head had saved him from half a dozen murder charges over the course of his lifetime. Murder wasn’t necessarily on the table here—a good old-fashioned ass whipping was.

  The boy tried to speak.

  Dregan held a hand up to silence him. Took the brake off and wheeled them north, the sweet taste of revenge oh so close to being realized instantly edging out the anger he was feeling toward his boy.

  Chapter 63

  From working a garden nearly year-round, Glenda’s hands were sinewy and didn’t tire easily—two attributes that came in handy with the task at hand. She began working Brook’s lower back—softening her up for the pain to come—with what the younger nurse had affectionately dubbed her ‘man’s touch.’ While painful at the onset, Glenda’s self-taught technique worked wonders at breaking down the built-up collagen fibers, which in turn was helping to increase the range of motion in Brook’s right shoulder and neck.